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the terms of borrowing began to rife confiderably, various expedients were adopted for raifing great part of the fupplies within the year. During three years, extraordinary burthens were impofed, in the form of triple affeffments, voluntary contributions, and income tax, until the whole of the new fyftem of fihance being found inadequate, and the calculations of its productive powers being completely disappointed, recourfe was again had to the funding fyftem; and this has been revived with increafed vigour, partly in confequence of the relief given to the funds by the new meafures of the former years, but principally in confequence of the fufpenfion of fpecie payments at the Bank of England, which enables that body to affift fpeculators with unlimited credit, and of the difaftrous ftate of trade which turns an unnatural proportion of the national capital into the public funds. He roundly afcribes the ftoppage of bank payments to the exportation of fpecie occafioned by the foreign loans and fubfidies. The means adopted for providing the inte reft upon the new loans, have been taxes which are chiefly productive during a feafon of war; and many of them have already failed in fupplying the requifite fums. If, before the peace, thofe impofts prefented a deficit of half a million, our author predicts that more than eight times this fum will be wanting after the war is concluded. With refpect to the furplus of the confolidated fund, a full and clear statement is given of the effects which the war produced upon that part of the resources; and it is proved, we think, with fufficient precifion, that Mr Pitt's eftimates of the increase were generally much above the truth. According to our author, it would appear that, during feveral years of the war, the statement of certain fums as arifing from the furplus, was only a transference to the fame amount from monies raised by loan, or, in other words, certain fums were borrowed and applied in defraying the charges upon the confolidated fund, in order to be ftated as a furplufage in the produce of that fund. He admits, however, that in the earlier part of the war, the real furplus was confiderable, at one time even much greater than its average amount during the previous years of peace. As to the state of the fund during the prefent adminiftration, our author declares that it is almoft impoffible to comprehend this or any other part of the finances, from the great obfcurity and confufion which prevails through the whole revenue department. Several examples which he gives are, if accurately ftated, fufficiently demonftrative of this fevere charge.

In fhort,' he obferves, the further we proceed in investigating the ftatements given of the public finances, the more we shall find the difficulty

difficulty increase of obtaining any fatisfactory information from them. I do not know, indeed, that thefe accounts were ever remarkable for their perfpicuity, or for according with each other. But what was formerly perplexed is now rendered unintelligible; and the talk of thoroughly understanding the present fyftem of finance, is become as hopelefs as the attempt to reform it.' p. 95.

We have now laid before our readers the fubftance of the grounds upon which Mr Morgan accufes the late adminiftration of unexampled profufion, and predicts the ruin of the finances from the difafters entailed by the late war on our national revenue. Without entering into a minute detail of the objections that may be urged against his ftatements, we fhall proceed to point out, as briefly as poffible, the general defects which we perceive in the chain of his argument, more especially in that very important link of it, which connects all his calculations and facts with the conclufions they are made to fupport.

In the first place, admitting the general method of reasoning to be correct, which our author adopts, it may be observed, that the cafe made out against the financial operations of the late war, by the comparative view formerly given, is far from being so strong as he would have it to appear. The argument, in this point of view, appears to be, that all the difaftrous confequences of the Seven-years war, were aggravated in the American war; and that, in the late conteft, the evil has advanced with strides ftill more gigantic. Now, this is by no means confiftent with the detail, as may be feen from the comparative table above drawn up. Several very important effects of the war establishment upon the finances of the country, are proved, by that table, to have increased in a much fmaller proportion during the late war, compared with the American, than during the American compared with the Seven-years war. The average expence of the military and naval departments, for inftance, was twice as much in the American as in the Sevenyears war. The fame expence was increased by confiderably lefs than one half in the late war, compared with the American. Had the proportion been continued, that is, had the expence of the late war borne to the expence of the American war, the fame proportion which the expence of the American bore to that of the Seven-years war, the military and naval establishment would have been as 4.000 inftead of 2.944 (Table, col. V.) The fame remark may be made upon the greatest annual expenditure, and upon the excefs of the actual above the estimated expences of the war. In the ftill more important article of the fictitious capital added to the debt by thofe wars, the late war appears also to fall fhort of the proportion. The difference between the money received and the ftock created, was above three times greater in the Ame- VOL. IV. NO. 7• rican

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rican than in the Seven-years war. This difference was, in the laft war, much less than three times its amount in the American war. (See Table, col. II. IV. & VII.) A great number of material confiderations have, therefore, been altogether omitted by Mr Morgan on one fide of the account, while he is endeavouring to ftrike a balance.

But we may obferve, in the next place, that fuch comparisons are extremely unfair, if made without a much fuller confideration of circumftances. The fucceffive wars in which a ftate engages at fhort intervals of time, are far from being unconnected with each other in a financial point of view. They are not infulated events, which may be compared without any allowance for their reciprocal influence. The credit of the country, in every conteft, is neceffarily affected by the event of the feveral previous contests which have in former years brought it into difficulties. If fifty millions were added to the public debt in the Seven-years war, much more than the fame fum must have been added to the debt in the American war, in order to raise as much, money as was formerly procured for fifty millions. And, in like manner, the amount of the debt in confequence of the two previous wars, neceffarily rendered its increase more rapid during the late war than it would have been, if no former burthens of this nature had exifted.

But, in the third place, we have a general and peremptory ob*jection to the whole method of argument used by Mr Morgan in this performance. His object is to prove, not that our expences. have been increased, but that our Government has been extravagant. Now, we do not conceive it poffible to estimate the extravagance of Government during any war, by merely fumming up the money disbursed, and the debt contracted. This is only one fide of the account; and to infer, from the refult of the calculation, any pofitive charge of profufion against those who fuperintended the disbursement, is to be guilty of the fame error that a merchant would commit, were he to boast of his profits, or complain of his loffes, without ftriking a balance in his books. Mr Morgan, in fact, endeavours to folve the queftion, without attending to the necessary data; and the whole refult of his calculation muft, of confequence, be indeterminate. There are only two ways in which a war can be demonftrated to be extravagantly carried on. Either we may deny its neceflity and utility, which are indeed one and the fame thing; or maintain that the fame object might have been obtained at a finaller expence. Mr Morgan exprefsly disclaims all political difcuffions that are not neceffarily involv ed in his examination of our finances but we conceive that the political queftion of the origin of the war, on the one hand, and

the

the peculiar method of conducting its expenditure, on the other, are neceffarily involved in the inquiry which he has undertaken. to conduct. In his former works, he feemed to be aware of this confideration; for he there attempted to fhow, that the loans might have been negotiated on terms more advantageous to the public. In the prefent effay, he never once points at any fuch comparifon; and, without a proof of this nature, or a demonftration that the war ought not to have been waged, or, if waged, that it could have been carried on with fmaller military and naval eftablishments, or a ftatement of the favings which might have been made in the difpofal of the revenue, all his calculations of the abfolute amount of loans, expenditure and taxes, prefent us only with a view of one fide of the account-one part of the data, from which no conclufion whatever can be drawn as to the profufion or economy of the Government.

Such being our general objection to the political logic of Mr Morgan in this pamphlet, we are the less anxious about the par ticular arguments which he has taken occafion to intermix with bis calculations. The melancholy profpect which he holds out of the diminution that the revenue appropriated to defray the expences of the debt muft experience after a peace, has been contradicted by the immenfe increase of that revenue during the last two years. The idea of the unlimited iffue of bank paper allowing every needy fpeculator to bid for loans in fafety, is too ob viously inconfiftent with the facts refpecting the bank business, to require any detailed refutation. The notion, that the unfavour able courfe of exchange which led to the fufpenfion of cash payments at the bank was produced by the exportation of bullion to fubfidize foreign princes, can scarcely be deemed any thing less than thoughtless and violent party declamation, in one who is fo well acquainted with the vaft commercial refources of this ifland, who ftates the whole amount of the foreign fubfidies at little more than the comparatively paltry fum of five millions, and who ought to be acquainted with the plaineft principles of this branch of po litical economy. In fact, notwithstanding our author's apparent predilection for arguments ftrictly arithmetical, and his careful dilavowal of any defire to enter upon political topics, we cannot help fufpecting that he has adopted this mode of reafoning from figures, as the moft plaufible and fpecious plan of attacking the financial operations of the late miniftry, and has avoided the dif cullion of more general fubjects, only because the refult of fuch a difcuffion must have effentially affected the application of his political arithmetic to the queftion at iffue. In fpite of the purely arithmetical guife in which he attempts to veil his fpeculations, and the unquestionable skill with which he conducts all his numer

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ical operations, we have no hesitation in pronouncing the perfor mance to be completely factious in its whole defign and execution, and eminently inconclufive in its principles of reafoning.

ART. VI. Travels from Hamburg, through Weftphalia, Holland, and the Netherlands, to Paris. By Thomas Holcroft. Two vol. 4to. with folio plates. pp. 950. London, Philips, 1804.

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ROM the pen of Mr Holcroft we expected at least fomething amufing; but the greater part of this work does not rife above the denomination of light reading; and light reading, when it is dilated into two capacious quartos, is apt to become as burdenfome to the intellect as matter more substantial.

These travels are evidently composed in imitation of the Sentimental Journey of Sterne; and the model has been copied with fuch fcrupulous exactnefs of imitation, that none of its faults are omitted. The offenfive familiarity, the affected oddity and abruptnefs, the frequent interjections, the apoftrophes to imaginary perfons, the egotifm and levity that diftinguish the ftyle of Sterne, are at leaft as remarkable in his imitator, as his wit, pathos, or originality. Such a manner of writing could only please, we fhould imagine, in the hands of the original inventor; and though it might help to fet off a series of appropriate fictions, was evidently unfuitable for a distinct and continued narrative of real occurrences. Such is the ftyle, however, which Mr Holcroft has thought proper to adopt as the vehicle of all that profound obfervation, authentic anecdote, and philofophical defeription, by which he flatters himself that he has paved the way to the formation of an univerfal and permanent code of ethics. Of the common offences of fuch imitators, vulgarity, pertness, and trifling or abfolute fillinefs, Mr Holcroft has certainly his full share to answer for: It would be unjuft, however, not to add, that he is occafionally lively, ingenious and amufing; that he is generally good-natured and tolerant; and that there is an air of authenticity in most of his narratives, that recommends them to the belief of the reader, in fpite of the affectation of the language in which they are delivered.

The profeffed object of Mr Holcroft's book is to delineate the manners of the people among whom he travels; and, by fixing the facts and the philofophy of national character in the moft important part of Europe, to enlarge the sphere, and increase the accuracy of our moral obfervations. He contrives, however, not to be very much constrained by the exclufive nature of his object; for whenever he finds himself difpofed to defcribe a building, a picture,

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